Game Day: Canucks’ ‘key still to make playoffs’? Try three wins in a row first

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VANCOUVER — For the first time in a while, the P-word was voluntarily uttered this morning in connection with the Vancouver Canucks.

Yes, coach Willie Desjardins mentioned playoffs, and not in the incredulous, high-pitched voice that former New Orleans Saints coach Jim Mora used years ago to express how far-fetched the playoffs were for his struggling football team.

"We're fighting for sure," Desjardins said after the Canucks skated ahead of tonight's National Hockey League game against the Winnipeg Jets (7 p.m. PT, on Sportsnet Pacific, TSN 1040). "Our key is still to make the playoffs; that's what we're looking at. We're going to do what we can to win the game."

In Desjardins' defence, he was speaking in the context of his lineup and what he hopes to accomplish.

But if the Stanley Cup playoffs were the primary goal — and not the secondary one to player development and roster renewal — the Canucks would not have used nine rookies this season and carried two teenagers in the lineup since training camp.

Tonight's lineup will include five rookies, assuming minor-league call-up Alex Grenier arrives in time to replace Alex Burrows, who blocked a Shea Weber shot to help preserve Saturday's 4-2 victory against the Nashville Predators.

That was the Canucks' second straight victory, which led to the mention of playoffs and a chance tonight to build a three-game winning streak for the first time this season.

For the record, the Canucks are eight points out in the Western Conference wild-card race, have games in hand on the three teams they need to pass and are as likely to win the next Super Bowl as the next Stanley Cup.

But you've got to love their enthusiasm, even if it disappoints the draftists who don't actually buy tickets and would rather see the team lose the rest of the way.

"We've got two games in hand on Minnesota, three on Colorado, and we've got to win those before we talk about anything," defenceman Chris Tanev said of the P-word. "We wanted to get on a roll and it just hasn't worked for us. Hopefully we can get a third (straight win) tonight and get on that roll we've been looking for."

Even with the Canucks' many flaws, experience among them, it's almost incomprehensible they could go 67 games into their season without managing to win three games in a row. They still have Daniel and Henrik Sedin and excellent goaltending. Three wins are one good game, a bad opposition goalie and a favourable shootout.

The Canucks are 0-6-1 after two-game winning streaks.

"Yeah, it's amazing," Danny Sedin said. "If I had the answer … I don't know. The main thing for this team this year is when we win, we've been way too high. And when we lose, we've been way too low. A sign of a good time is when you win a game, you move on. That's how you get those winning streaks going. That's been an issue this year."

"Any team should be able to do that," winger Jannik Hansen said of a three-peat. "But for some reason, we've just been up and down and up and down for the whole year. When you look at it now, it's hard to believe. But we haven't been very consistent, even within games. We have good stretches and then we kind of fall apart a little bit. That's the reason we're in the situation we're in."

Hansen skated with teammates for the first time since injuring his ribs on March 1, but won't play tonight. Tanev, however, is expected to return after missing three games with a sore back. Grenier, who played three games in three nights on the weekend in the American Hockey League, will replace Burrows on a line with Bo Horvat and Derek Dorsett.

Russian defenceman Nikita Tryamkin, who joined the Canucks last week from the Kontinental Hockey League, will wait until Wednesday's game against the Colorado Avalanche to make his NHL debut. He skated this morning, but has had only one full practice with the Canucks.

Jets' star Dustin Byfuglien is a game-time decision due to illness. The Jets, five points adrift of the Canucks in the standings, are 3-8-2 in their last 13 games.

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Game Day: Canucks’ ‘key still to make playoffs’? Try three wins in a row first

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